Why terror kingpin Yasin Malik enjoyed ‘freedom of both worlds’ for 25 years
After his three-year-long tryst with terrorism and being in jail for three years, the pioneer of Kashmir's unceasing gun culture and the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) founder Maqbool Bhat's successor, Yasin Malik, enjoyed "the freedom of the both worlds" for 25 years-- from 1994 to 2019. From the day Malik, then a 28-year-old school dropout and the son of a government bus driver, was permitted to address his first press conference from the Principal Government Medical College (GMC) Srinagar Dr. Ghulam Qadir Allaqaband's chair in 1994 to the day of the 40 CRPF men's killing in a major terror attack in 2019, all criminal cases against him were virtually dumped. He was left free to grow as a politician, visit the world, marry in Pakistan and hold campaigns and demonstrations across the country for "Kashmir's freedom from India" and against the Indian security forces. While in Pakistan, Malik shared stage with the Lashkar-e-Tayyiba ideolo